NO ABORTION FUNDING IN THE BUDGET

NO ABORTION FUNDING IN THE BUDGET

Open Letter to the Illinois General Assembly

May 24th, 2018

On September 28, 2017, Governor Rauner signed into law House Bill 40, which authorizes the use of taxpayer funds for abortions through Medicaid and state employee health insurance. This new mandate is not eligible for reimbursement by the federal government, putting the entire cost on Illinois taxpayers.

House Bill 40 did not contain an appropriation; therefore, funding for elective abortions will come out of state Medicaid and health insurance funding.

No one knows how many more abortions there will be due to House Bill 40, but no matter the number, the principle is the same: our state tax dollars should not go to pay for abortion. You have the opportunity to ensure that no taxpayer money is used to end the life of any unborn child.

We are asking all members of the Illinois General Assembly to refuse to provide the means for House Bill 40 to accomplish its deadly consequences by including language in annual appropriations denying the use of tax dollars for elective abortions.

Due to our less-restrictive laws, in 2016 there was a 40 percent increase in the number of people coming to Illinois from out-of-state to undergo an abortion, forcing Illinois taxpayers not only to pay for abortions of Illinois citizens but of those from out-of-state. House Bill 40 will accelerate this trend.

Please work with us to protect taxpayers and unborn children.

Robert Gilligan, Executive Director

Catholic Conference of Illinois

Dawn Behnke, President

Illinois Federation For Right to Life

Eric Scheidler, Executive Director

Pro-Life Action League

Mary Kate Knorr, Executive Director

Ralph Rivera, Legislative Chairman

Illinois Right to Life Action

Bonnie Quirke, President

Lake County Right to Life

February 8, 2018

Last of the Pro-Life Democrats Under Fire

And then there were three. That is how many pro-life Democrats remain in the House of Representatives. And the abortion industry is looking to reduce that number by a third in March, by funding a primary challenge to Chicago Congressman Dan Lipinski. If successful, this campaign will likely push Democrats to fight harder for public funding and against any conscience protections. If it fails, it likely won’t signal a sea change in abortion politics—but it might loosen the pro-choice stranglehold on the Democratic National Committee just a bit, giving politicians like Lipinski a chance to speak out for the smallest among us, in what was once the party of the little guy.

Last year, the House voted to make the Hyde Amendment principles more permanent, by means of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act. Only three Democrats voted for the act: Lipinski; Collin Peterson, long representing a Republican-leaning rural district in Minnesota; and Henry Cuellar, who represents a mostly Hispanic district along the Rio Grande in Texas. More recently, when the question was whether abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy should be banned, it was again only these three among the Democrats who stood for the unborn. Neither bill has been passed by the Senate.